There are seasons for casting nets and seasons for mending them. There are seasons for planting and seasons for harvesting. There is living and dying. There are laughter and tears. Our seasons are measured by the tides, by the phases of the moon, by sunrise and sunset, by the rhythm of our breath, or the beats of our heart. We seldom notice the drifting of time unless it is moored to moments that have weight: the smile of a pretty girl, a wedding, our children's birth, or the assassination of a president. The rest of time is only countless breaths without enough detail to hold our attention. Our lives are leaky vessels that retain very few of the moments, leaving us to wonder where they all went as we approach the end.

I have been fortunate enough to be one who has always had a pretty full cup. I have known the love of parents and grandparents. I have the love of a good woman, and the joy of happy children. I have had my share of celebration, as well as an undercurrent of sadness. This is the ebb and flow of my life, the cycle of my own private tides that have brought the flotsam and jetsam of derelict dreams and the cherished crystals polished smooth by the sand and waves. I have the peace of knowing that I would offer no changes to this life's tapestry if the option were given me. Enough of it has been woven to see that there has been order to the seeming chaos. It is well with my soul.

This peace has been hard won. I have the scars that remind me that I have not always been a peaceful man. Ironically, it's these reminders of war that keep me at peace. These reminders instruct me that I have had my way before, and in my rebellion I left a wake of destruction that wasn't limited to myself. Others have been victims of my siege. Although the terms of my surrender have not required restitution, I have attempted it where I have been permitted.
My testimony is of a man broken by his own life, refined by conflagrations that were sparked by my own match. Yet my trials are common to all men. I had hidden from view the fact that my life was not mine, and had conducted my life in such a way that said that the moments of my life could be spent as my own currency. My philosophy has changed and I now render unto Caesar what is rightfully his. I now acknowledge that my moments belong to him.